Forms part of the Drive-in Restaurants of Portland Oral History Project.
Collection is open for research.
Gift of Curtis Johnson, February 1981 (Lib. Acc. 28441).
Robert Svilar was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1925. He worked in the Traffic Division of the Portland Police Bureau and, beginning in 1956, directed traffic at Yaw's Top Notch drive-in restaurant while off-duty. He was known as Bob the Tootsie Roll Cop for his practice of handing out Tootsie Roll candies to customers at Yaw's. He died in 2007.
Forms part of the Drive-in Restaurants of Portland Oral History Project.
Handwritten index (4 pages) is available for in-person use at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Oral history interview with Robert Svilar, by Curtis Johnson, SR 9251, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Robert Svilar was conducted by Curtis Johnson from September 10-11, 1980, at Carmen's Restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The interview was conducted as part of the Drive-in Restaurants of Portland Oral History Project, a series of interviews that Johnson conducted about the history of Portland drive-ins, with a particular emphasis on Tik-Tok and Yaw's Top Notch. The interview was conducted in two sessions.
In the first interview session, conducted on September 10, 1980, Svilar briefly discusses his family background and early life in Portland and talks about working for the Portland Police Bureau. He speaks about directing traffic at Yaw's Top Notch drive-in restaurant while off-duty; speaks about handing out Tootsie Roll candies to restaurant customers; and talks about police-community relations in the Hollywood neighborhood of Portland. He talks about the popularity of drive-in restaurants in the 1950s and 1960s, and how the atmosphere changed in the 1970s.
In the second interview session, conducted on September 11, 1980, Svilar continues discussing directing traffic at Yaw's while off-duty. He revisits the topics of police-community relations in the Hollywood neighborhood of Portland and the popularity of drive-in restaurants in the 1950s and 1960s, and how the atmosphere changed in the 1970s. He describes the layout of Yaw's Top Notch, shares a few anecdotes about his time working there, and talks about his reasons for leaving Yaw's. He talks about his service in the Navy, his early career with the Portland Police Bureau, and the menu at Yaw's. He closes the interview by discussing the reasons drive-in restaurants declined in popularity.
Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA,